OBITUARIES

This folder includes obituaries for jazz musicians or persons of significance to the Australian jazz community, written by several contributors. Click on the INDEX box to access a list of obituaries contained in this folder.

OBITUARY: BERNIE McGANN 1937-2013

by John Clare

Australianjazz.net September 9, 2013

No sooner had I filed a review of the Bernie McGann album Wending on this site than McGann’s closest musical associate John Pochée phoned me with the news that our great and dear friend had gone. Neither of us was surprised, having seen him in hospital days before. The surprise was that he had fought on for so long. McGann died in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital not far from where I live. I was not long out of there myself and did not know until very recently that he was there having a serious operation at about the same time as I was…

Joe Lane was larger than life. His thrilling, erratic performances as a jazz singer contributed to this impression, as did his eccentricity, gravelly voice and a rumoured fling with Ava Gardner. Above all there was an overriding zest for life - lived on Joe ‘Bebop’ Lane's terms. Bebop, the complex jazz initiated in the 1940s by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach and others, occupied Lane's name and the centre of his life. He was among the first Australians to perform the new music…